Posted
by
Soulskill
on Thursday March 17, 2011 @05:37AM
from the just-in-case-you-thought-the-plastic-ones-didn't-cost-enough dept.

Despite recenttroubles in the music game market, Ubisoft thinks the genre still has room for innovation. They have announced Rocksmith, a rhythm game designed for use with real electric guitars. The guitars will connect to a console or PC through the standard output jack.
"... the 'note highway' is actually a virtual guitar fretboard, complete with numbers which correspond to the different frets, and the 'target zone' consists of six horizontal strings. Wherever each note appears on the virtual fret board, that’s where your finger(s) go on the physical fretboard. Once the note reaches the target area you strum the string it comes into contact with. Simple. The camera zooms dynamically to highlight where on the fret board you should be looking at, in much the same way that a musician’s eyes would scan up and down the neck of the instrument during a performance."

Rock Band has this but, as you stated, you have to buy a $300 guitar. I already have a $300 guitar, I'm not gonna plunk down $300 for their SPECIAL guitar. This is a great option for me as they've stated you only need to buy a cheapo guitar USB adapter like one that you'd use with Garage Band.

Indeed - also, the $300 Rock Band guitar isn't nearly as nice as what you can get for $300 in the regular electic market. That's approaching the price of being able to get something actually pretty nice and functional. I didn't pay much more than that for my best guitar (a 2004 Gibson Melody Maker - back when they still came with the dogear P90 pickup).

Because that's what you get for $300. It has a standard midi-out you can use for anything you'd like. That's not really that horrible. While I don't know which telecaster it is that they're using, most of them are in the $150 - $250 price range as a "standard" guitar.

And given that, I suspect you should be able to figure out how to use any other midi guitar with rock band 3 as well.

MIDI doesn't interest me that much. Also, from my understanding they're using the Squire line of Fender Stratocasters (not Telecasters). I've seen those for as little as $99 on sale new. Normal non-sale price at Guitar Center is $119. I have a used one that I picked up for $60 from a pawn shop. Technically not TOO bad of an instrument. They work, and are "real" guitars as opposed to something like the First Act stuff they sell in department stores which are more or less toys, but as I said - you can g

If a game makes practice easier or more enjoyable, why not use it? In the end, it's the acquired skill that counts, not the way you got it. And if the game teaches you a usable skill, it definitively isn't stupid.

This is not the first game to attempt this: see the (still) unreleased Guitar Rising [guitarrising.com] or the open source Little Big Star [littlebigstar.net], now abandoned. I saw a guitar tutor program at CES this year that also attempts it.

None work very well. I played with Little Big Star for a while with my guitar through a POD, and while it could recognize individual notes, chords were missed a lot. The CES guitar tutorial program actually sucked- I was amazed at how bad it was. They attempted to hide it by

I agree, but why not make a device that just takes input from an actual guitar, and interprets whether you are hitting the right notes, without a need to have a special guitar.

Er, that's exactly what TFA is about. Rocksmith will do frequency analysis of the signal from an ordinary electric guitar.

The risk is that it won't work as well as a special guitar controller. The poshest Rock Band Pro guitar is a real guitar, but has electronics in the neck to detect when a string is pressed against the each fret, presumably because Harmonix felt they couldn't do polyphonic frequency analysis accurately enough for the job.

Funny, I play drums and guitar too, and I've been in a band in the past, and yet I don't like this kind of games. Will your Majesty allow me to express my humble opinion, or does the fact that you enjoy the game compels everybody else to follow Your will?

I used to dislike them on principal too, but when I actually played one (Guitar Hero III).. like I said, I had a hell of a lot of fun. When Rock Band came out with the drums, it was even better. My drumming was already nice and solid, but my skills shot up quickly over a month or two of learning new rhythms on Rock Band.

The question, because you have exactly the same elitist attitude I had before I played the game. The. Game. Is. Fun. Even if you play the real instruments and play in a band. If you are not willing to even try the game, then please don't bother to complain about it, you are just causing people to think you are a douche.

This would be an amazing practice tool. If I were still playing in a band, I would buy this in a heartbeat and incorporate it into my practice routine (which was quite intense, as it must be fore any type of music that takes more than a heartbeat to play).

Not everyone has the time/commitment/money for lessons (which would certainly be a better option for learning to play).

Still, they somehow have the time/commitment/money for playing the game? Or are they just casual players and thus not really interested in playing an instrument? This is the point: you want to play guitar, you just buy one. You want to learn to play, you might choose self-learning if you don't want to throw money at lessons. (Of course, you just want to have a nice time with friends, you go and play with them and be happy.)

when's the last time you passed a guitar to a non guitar playing friend and had them start playing?

It was some years ago. I taught him his first chords. I had him "start playing". Alas

Just that you could as well skip the game. And: this comment [slashdot.org].

You seem to think that learning guitar from a teacher is easier or better than playing a game which teaches you guitar as a side effect of you having fun. I disagree. And this game would appear to address Prince's objection directly.

I've played RockBand 3 with friends.. i have zero musical ability.. trust me if i could play a real instrument i would play a piano or a cello..

but that being said i don't have the ability or the time to commit to learning a real instrument.. but its fun to play the game as a game.. if anything it has given me a new found respect (i already had a lot but now just a lot more) for people who can actually play well.

It's a game.. it's fun to move to the more difficult settings with playing a real instrument

I've played guitar and drums in a band, and I have played both in Guitar Hero. Nothing beats playing with the band. The element of improvisation alone puts it miles above a video game. Not only that, but GH and Rock Band drumming are not real drumming. Yes, analogous, and yes, a real drummer has a big advantage when playing RB/GH over a non-drummer, but a RB/GH drummer doesn't benefit from the same comparison.

I'll give you this: video game drumming is more like real drumming than video game guitar is like r

On a related note, here is some not researched, anecdotal opinion: the best bands often site as influential bands that weren't nearly as successful. True genre busting, cutting edge musicians bring together ideas from a variety of places. Learning every Nirvana song will not make you the next Nirvana. I'd go so far as to say cannot make you the next Nirvana.

That's great and all, but many people have no intention nor desire to be the "next Nirvana". I don't want to play in a band. I don't want to play gigs. When I play around on my guitar it's typically just to pass time or goofing off with friends (none of which play anything and most of whom would be drunk anytime the guitar comes out).

For many people, the instrument isn't a career choice, or even a major focus of life - it's just a hobby.

I felt a lot more rewarded after completing Rock Band than I did when I was drumming in a band, because I learned a lot more. Of course I prefer playing original songs over covers in a real band, but as a learning tool and a way of measuring your accomplishments and skill, Rock Band is nice.

BTW, playing guitar on Guitar Hero and Rock Bands of old is obviously nothing like playing a real guitar, but playing Rock Band 3 guitar is getting almost as closer to playing real guitar as playing Rock Band drums gets

Drummer here (semi-professional, i.e., serious hobbyist that gets paid for session work even though I have a "real" job). Rock band drums are nothing like real drums. They don't even map the pads in a standard drum kit configuration.

My drumming is far from semi-professional. I based my statement mostly on an NPR (?) piece that said a "Ringo" in a Beatles tribute band scored ninety something percent on the highest level the first time he played Beatles Rock Band (or was that GH?). Also, my limited drumming experience (which may just be my natural rhythmic ability) gets me really high scores on "moderate" playing songs with which I am familiar only by ear. I do not claim that playing GH/RB makes one a better drummer; it may help coordina

I've played guitar and drums in a band, and I have played both in Guitar Hero. Nothing beats playing with the band. The element of improvisation alone puts it miles above a video game. Not only that, but GH and Rock Band drumming are not real drumming. Yes, analogous, and yes, a real drummer has a big advantage when playing RB/GH over a non-drummer, but a RB/GH drummer doesn't benefit from the same comparison.

Improvisation is important, but so is technique. The pendulum swings both ways: all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, but all play and no work also makes Jack a dull boy. A computer can't teach improv, but when it comes to measurement of accuracy in timing, a computer can't be beat. (pun intended).

This is the point: you want to play guitar, you just buy one. You want to learn to play, you might choose self-learning if you don't want to throw money at lessons. (Of course, you just want to have a nice time with friends, you go and play with them and be happy.)

I've played real guitar for 20 years.

I've watched videos of the Rock Band 3 "pro guitar" being used, and it looks like it would be a productive way of teaching yourself to play the guitar parts in those songs. It really is like following a tab, with a machine to tell you when you screw up. I assume there are practice options as in other Rock Band games, where you can isolate the part, slow it down, practice with a metronome etc.

Once you'd learned it, you'd need to plug into a real amp and practice some more

The Rock Band 3 tutorials do go through scales for piano and guitar, so there is indeed some value even for those who like to improvise:) I find it bloody hard though, I'd much prefer if the tab went horizontally like I'm used to.. also I wasn't playing on a real guitar, I was playing with the buttoned one, so it's harder to coordinate your fingers.. on a real guitar I guess you can notice slightly by the change in position/tension which strings are currently being fretted (without having to look down I me

i haven't even played the game in question, and I'm sure I'd enjoy it. I've played guitar for 11 years and I will do anything I can to advance my playing. This game isn't going to turn me into Joe Satriani. I'm not going to be the next Paul Gilbert. I can only dream of being Steffen Schackiner. But if this game brings me even one step closer, then it is worth it. I am almost entirely self tought, and i wish I had been classically trained. I think i do fairly well for myself [youtube.com] (if that link failed and you're

I'm also self-thought (shameless plug over here [youtube.com]), and would welcome a chance to have a mchine grade me (which is, in effect, what this is). If I play a piece twice, I have to listen to them both side-by-side to decide which one came out better - very time-consuming. I'd rather simply have a machine score me on accuracy.

(Actually, with a real guitar, they can probably also score you on improv skills:-))

You're spending an aweful lot of time trying to explain ways to acheive this task without the game. The problem is your whole position seems to stem from some inherent notion that a game is bad, and should thus be avoided.

That position is not going to be shared by most here (and at it's base is rather illogical). Rather than worry about all the ways I could avoid playing a game and learning guitar, if I you know, actually LIKE games (as I'm sure many here do), then it's not a bad idea to just use the game

The game is an excellent learning tool. Not everyone has the time/commitment/money for lessons (which would certainly be a better option for learning to play).

Honest question here - why do you assume that lessons (in the traditional format of "go to a person who teaches the instrument, and ask them to teach it to you") are a better option than a game? I'd argue that a well structured game which requires the learning of a skill as part of the gameplay is probably the best possible way to learn that skill.

Most good games require players to master complex moves, commit long sequences to memory, and react rapidly to stimuli. Those are the same skills required to pl

I had two friends over Saturday night to play rock band. Neither of them are serious guitar players. One of them had never played before. Both of them played the instrument in the game on 'easy' and were able to pass songs. Tell me, when's the last time you passed a guitar to a non guitar playing friend and had them start playing?

Never, but technically you didn't either; your friends were NOT playing a guitar.

The Wii and the various dance games started this trend by making players move and exercise. Now Ubisoft wants to introduce formal music teaching and practise via a game. Well it seems that simple games are getting too shallow and the game industry is poaching time honored ways to waste time from other domains, which have proven to offer more or less unlimited levelling capacity.

I just can't wait to hear people talk about how easy it was to beat the Bon Jovi level but that they're stuck on that evil Habanera Flameco boss before they can get to the Mariachi level.

It is all the ultimate plan. Make games increasingly realistic by weening you off of the games and systems themselves.

A generation from now we'll be paying a $15 a month World of LIfecraft fee to be hooked up to the most realistic game ever. MPAA and RIAA will declare eyes and ears recording devices and seeing unlicensed events for free copyright theft.

Well I think its great when any game can impart a skill people could use in real life the existing and even the Rockband 3 "Real Guitar".Arn't real guitars IMHO.Its like the final step but lets hope that more than a couple of people get hooked and make some good music.

There are different types of Rock Band 3 pro guitar. One has buttons and sucks. However, one is a guitar that you can plug into an amp and play as you would with any electric guitar. How is that not "real"?:p

it's really frustrating trying to learn guitar. Following finger positions is almost impossible at first because as you face the person everything is backwards and your brain wants your hand to move left, for instance, when you see the other person move left.

what's more is trying to learn guitar with guitar-hero and the like is like trying to learn sex through masturbation. You are kind of doing it, but there is way more going on with the real thing.

I've played guitar for 30 years, and the following quote is disturbing to me:"in much the same way that a musician’s eyes would scan up and down the neck of the instrument during a performance"

You're not really supposed to be looking at the frets while you're playing. Your fingers are supposed to know where to go without looking, much like when one learns to properly touch type. Looking at your fingers while you're playing is a bad habit that sadly a lot of new guitarists fall into. Yes, in the initial learning stages one needs to do so, but any good teacher will break that habit in their students as soon as possible.

That being said this might still be a useful learning aid for aspiring guitarists. I'm not interested.

Well, I've only played for 20 years, but surely using your eyes is an advantage? I don't scan the fretboard constantly because in a band situation you need to checking with the drummer, or nodding to the keyboard player to take a solo; but when I'm in a complex passage or ripping out a solo I'm 100% concentrated on getting things right, and to me that includes visual feedback of the fretboard.

Sure riffing some Am chord or playing some simple blues riffs you don't NEED to look down all the time but I don't s

You're not really supposed to be looking at the frets while you're playing. Your fingers are supposed to know where to go without looking, much like when one learns to properly touch type. Looking at your fingers while you're playing is a bad habit that sadly a lot of new guitarists fall into. Yes, in the initial learning stages one needs to do so, but any good teacher will break that habit in their students as soon as possible.

Why?

This is an honest question. I'm also a guitarist with about 30 years of experience playing the instrument, and I look at the neck a lot. Not all the time, obviously, but I definitely look. So what? I can play the instrument very well, and that's all that matters. Who cares if I'm looking at the neck or looking at the ceiling or looking at my audience? I'm not interested in what I look like when I play, I'm interested in what I sound like, and I seem to be doing okay in that area.

Because, ideally, you should be looking at sheet music (or have the capacity to do so).

Well, that depends on the type of music you're playing. A rock guitarist who writes their own music likely never actually writes it down on paper, so is always playing from memory with a bit of improvising. That would be the category I generally fall into.

I expect less dependence on watching the fretboard translates to more comfort singing into a microphone while playing as well.

Yes, but that is why most singers play simple parts and have a lead guitarist do the complex stuff. If all I'm doing is strumming chords, I don't watch the frets. But if I suddenly need to jump from an open chord position up to the 12-15 range for a quick

What musicians may want is the ability to play songs with a backing track, without paying for a practice room.. not everyone has a garage they can play in, and friends who are ready to jam at a moment's notice, 24/7!

I don't see what's wrong with looking down if you're shifting all the way up to around the 8th-12th fret from open stringed chords.. I mean some guys can probably do it by feel, but I don't play very often. I can still play open chords without looking, but if I'm going to be going all over the neck I'll need to glance down from time to time.

If this game works out, these guys [smartmusic.com] are going to be very sad pandas.

They've been active for a few years now, producing computer-aided practice/scoring software for a variety of instruments, and voice. The computer knows what sounds are supposed to be produced, takes MIC input, crunches it into a reasonably meaningful delta(or, rather, series of deltas over time, so that the instructor can see where the student is or isn't having difficulty with a given piece). It is heavily geared toward schools, with lot

Their core tech is actually pretty cool(at least to my layman-when-it-comes-to-music-theory-and-FFTs eyes watching it build a deviation/time graph of the recorded student performance vs. the correct performance is a very neat trick); but pretty much all the 'peripheral' stuff(y'know, unimportant things like 'UI' and 'Not crashing' and 'having a search function that works') sucks pretty badly.

If Ubisoft has an adequately competent core, with the spit and polish given to (most) games that aren't headed rig

Guitar Rising [guitarrising.com] was first to announce a real guitar game back in 2008 but never released, presumably because of problems with the polyphonic pitch detection.

The first real guitar game released was LittleBigStar [littlebigstar.net], back in 2009. LittleBigStar supported a wide range of instruments, including guitar and bass, and loaded mp3s and standard tablatures in different open formats. It had a good momentum and indie developers made different kinds of musicgames, which they called MusicWare, but it was closed down two years ago. By those measures RockSmith is hardly new...

The LittleBigStar team decided to go commercial, presumably because they had success cracking the polyphonic pitch detection nut. They released Offbeat guitarist [jamorigin.com] which is freeware, support open formats and works great.

In 2009 Disney claimed to have found the holy grail of music gaming: Disney Star Guitarist [wired.com] but it was never released.

In 2010 Rise of the SixString was released with a guitar-controller hybrid.

Holiday 2010, Harmonix showed RockBand 3 pro-mode with the Squier Strat Controller. It went for sale in BestBuy stores in March 2011.

As someone who at least had 7 years of classical guitar lessons, even though never any super-great guitarist came out of it, I can only shake my head in dismay. Like with any other instrument, without a teacher who corrects your posture and technique you will become an absolutely horrible guitar player and the more you get used to bad technique the harder it will become to later correct it.

Of course, it's just a game... but the way they advertise it....as if t there weren't already enough lousy guitar playe

That said, playing guitar with an easy to read interface for your notes coming up (instead of flipping pages through books and turning pages), as well as a back track that syncs up automatically with your music, *and* feedback as to what notes you're playing wrong, is just a better way to practice.

I don't see anyone claiming how this will take the place of music lessons, but if it means that people actually play their instrument in between lessons it's a *huge* win.

I suppose I should not be surprised... People complain that Guitar Hero is trash and stupid because it's not playing a real guitar. Ergo, game is designed to use real guitar and now the complaint is that it is a real guitar. At least now everyone gets something to complain about.

And the complaint makes you look like a douche. Who made you the arbiter of what things could be attached to music in an attempt to create something fun? Because you deem Guitar Hero dumb, you call the players "morons" and "non-musical people". What about all the people who started out playing GH, then picked up a real guitar and started learning it? Why do they conveniently get ignored during these stupid arguments? The elitist argument against GH was "waaaah, it's not real guitar, it's for posers, waaaah"

Really! A decent beginners guitar will set you back $50, a violin $120 or a keyboard $200. Yes, you can pay more for better, but if you are learning or just jamming for fun there is really no need. There are plenty of instructional DVDs, Youtube clips, web advice, books and CDs for learners. Lots of people play so It's also a great way to meet people, whatever your style.

You don't need a game to do this! It's called Real Life and it's a lot more fun.

Leave it up to the hyper-analytical lot at slashdot to show complete ignorance about music. You can't quantify music. It is very subjective and playing an instrument is an art that cannot be measured by frequency analysis. A qualitative analysis (i.e. qualified judges) is the only way to determine how well an instrumentalist is playing.

Me? Get an education? You mean like a BA in Music Education? Riiiight. Something tells me you don't really know me, since that's precisely the undergrad degree I have.

Now if you'd like to just throw blanket statements out there about music = math plus formula, I would say that's good enough for a wiki entry. It also shows you aren't a musician if you believe that overly simplistic generalization.

Did you just admit to having a BA? I thought that was the kind of thing you'd want to keep to yourself.

Music may indeed be subjective, but playing an existing song isn't. Playing the right notes at the right time is what makes a song, if you're not playing the right notes, or if you're playing them at the wrong time, then you're not doing very good.

Also, why do they need to be qualified judges, I can tell you whether or not I like a song (didn't you say that it was subjective?) and I have bugger-all qualifi

I've been training for this game for 30 years. I knew the reason I have 7 guitars and thousands of dollars of supporting gear was so that I can finally crush the video game skills of a 12 year old. At least for the first couple of months, after which they'll blow past me and I'll go back to playing my real guitars for fun.

I started to reply that my post doesn't imply what you think it does, but then I had a look at your other replies and discovered you're a twit, so now I'm looking for the ignore function. I'll be very sad if there isn't one.

Anything that can't be picked up and enjoyed by everyone out of the box is doomed to failure. In this case because:
1) Barrier to entry too high, especially for people who already have a truckload of guitar hero/rock band stuff
2) Not comparable with existing rock band/guitar hero tracks that people own a metric ton of
3) The whiny bitches who complain about plastic guitars are the minority who are too stupid to understand that it's a game, not a life choice. This game will appeal to them, but probably n

The scrolling effect is a novel improvement, but the limits with the "note highway" are the same as they are for tab notation: it's a low level representation. It adds in an extra level of translation from cue to sound that will slow a person down. Sure, people who only master all levels of this kind of guitar training might be able to shred on tunes they've already learned, but they will be stuck trying to play along to something they've only just heard, or playing along with others live.

Well, I ain't mad at them. I hear it made, like, $2 billion and they came to us and offered us a very small portion of that," explained Prince. "But I just think it's more important that kids learn how to actually play the guitar. It's a tough instrument--it's not easy. It took me a long time, and it was frustrating at first. And you just have to stick with it, and it's cool for people who don't have time to learn the chords or ain't interested in it, but to play music is one of the greatest things.

That would explain the massive downturn in kids getting drivers licenses after racing games came out. Pretending that killing some time with guitar hero and playing the guitar are mutually exclusive is just making excuses.

Although I disagree with TFA/TFS. "... much the same way that a musician's eyes would scan up and down the neck of the instrument during a performance."? A performance-quality guitarist probably doesn't look at the fretboard while playing.

They criticise plastic controllers, now they criticise real guitars. Where's the happy in-between?

Those opposed to the music game genre generally believe the lack of realism is holding it back. It doesn't take any sort of musical skill aside from a good sense of beat to push 5 coloured buttons. Yet the instant it requires a real instrument, and real playing ability, it's not about the controller at all - you're still playing a game which immediately destroys any sort of credibility the activity of playing an instrument may have associated with it.

How is this any different to playing along with a CD, the radio, or youtube? It's not. It's arguably better as it will provide feedback on your progress while giving you a genuinely entertaining way to learn (by experiencing true rock and roll culture) rather than the stale "these are chord charts; now play these scales" you get from your local guitar school/tutor. I also hope Ubisoft will include an advanced tutorial for improving your playing technique instead of simply repeating a section of the song until you can perform the require button mashing from muscle memory.

The Squire Rock Band Pro controller is essentially a MIDI guitar. And the Mad Katz Rock Band Pro controller is a bank of buttons controlled with guitar-like hand shapes, that could also be used as a MIDI controller.

You raise an interesting point, that these game controllers could be adopted by OSS developers in the same way as the Kinect has been.

This is why Rock Band 3 uses MIDI instead of pitch detection. I've been working on software that does pitch detection for instruments for the last 10 years. We've contracted out to the best companies and research groups in the industry. Thus far, the only thing we can honestly offer to customers is pitch detection for monophonic instruments - that's the only thing that works well enough to offer commercially.

Erm... MIDI is a transport protocol, not a means of input. Most actual MIDI guitars use pitch detection, and I would see this as the best interface for a game such as this one. Roland were the first to come up with a mass-market MIDI product, and they did it by making a retrofit kit of 6 individual inductive-coil pickups to be fitted near the bridge. The coils were too small and too near the bridge to get a useful sound for direct output, but it was good enough to get an individual fundamental frequency